Chapter Eleven

LIN-CHI:

FOUNDER OF RINZAI ZEN

The Great Persecution of 845 brought to a close the creative Golden Age of Ch'an, while also leaving Ch'an as the dominant form of Chinese Buddhism. In the absence of an establishment Buddhism for Ch'an to distinguish itself against, the sect proceeded to evolve its own internal sectarianism. There arose what are today known as the "five houses," regional versions of Ch'an that differed in minor but significant ways.1 Yet there was no animosity among the schools, merely a friendly rivalry. In fact, the teachers themselves referred back to the prophecy attributed to Bodhidharma that the flower of _dhyana_ Buddhism would one day have five petals.

The masters who founded the five schools were all individualists of idiosyncratic character. Yet the times were such that for the most part their flowers bloomed gloriously only a few decades before slowly fading. However, two of the sects did prosper and eventually went on to take over the garden. These two houses, the Lin-chi and the Ts'ao-tung, both were concerned with dialectics and became the forerunners of the two Zen sects (Rinzai and Soto) eventually to flourish in Japan. Of the two, the Lin-chi is most directly traceable back to the earlier masters, since its founder actually studied under the master Huang-po.

The master known today as Lin-chi (d. 866?) was born in the prefecture of Nan-hua, in what today is Shantung province.2 He reportedly was brilliant, well behaved, and filled with the filial devotion expected of good Chinese boys. Drawn early to Buddhism, although not necessarily to Ch'an, he shaved his head and became a monk while still young. His early studies were of the sutras, as well as the _vinaya_ or Buddhist rules and the _sastra_ or commentaries. But in his early twenties he decided that he was

more interested in intuitive wisdom than orthodoxy and consequently took the road in search of a master.

Thus he arrived at the monastery of Huang-po already a fully ordained monk. But his learning was traditional and his personality that of a timorous fledgling monk. For three years he dutifully attended the master's sermons and practiced all the observances of the mountain community, but his advancement was minimal. Finally the head disciple suggested that he visit Huang-po for an interview to try to gain insight. The young man obligingly went in to see the master and asked him the standard opener: "What is the real meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West?" Huang-po's wordless response was to lay him low with a blow of his stick.

Lin-chi scurried away in perplexity and related the story to the head disciple, who encouraged him to return, which he did twice more. But each time he received the same harsh reception. He was finally so demoralized that he announced plans to leave the monastery and seek enlightenment elsewhere. The head monk related this to Huang-po together with the opinion that this young novice showed significant promise. So when Lin-chi came to bid Huang-po farewell, the master sympathetically directed him to the monastery of a kindly nearby teacher, the master Ta-yu.

Perhaps it was all planned, but when Lin-chi arrived at the second monastery and related his unhappy treatment at the hands of Huang-po the master Ta-yu listened patiently and then declared, "Huang-po treated you with great compassion. He merely wanted to relieve your distress." Upon hearing this Lin-chi suddenly understood that Huang-po was transmitting the wordless insight to him, the understanding that Ch'an lies not in the words produced in the abbot's room but rather in the realization of his intuitive mind. It suddenly was all so obvious that the young monk could not contain his joy and declared, "So Huang- po's Buddhism is actually very simple; there's nothing to it after all!" This struck the master Ta-yu as either impertinent or a significant breakthrough, so he grabbed Lin-chi and yelled, "You scamp! A minute ago you complained that Huang-po's teaching was impossible to understand and now you say there is nothing to it. What is it you just realized? Speak quickly!" (Only in a spontaneous utterance is there real, uncalculated evidence of enlightenment.)

Lin-chi's answer was to pummel Ta-yu in the ribs three times with his fist. The older master then discharged him (or perhaps kicked him out) with the observation, "Your teacher is Huang-po, and therefore you do not concern me." Thus the enlightened young novice trudged back up the mountain to Huang-po's monastery. The master greeted him with the puzzled observation: "Haven't you come back a bit too soon? You only just left." In response Lin-chi bowed and said, "It's because you've been so kind to me that I came back so quickly," and he proceeded to relate the story of his sudden enlightenment. To which Huang-po declared, "What a big mouth that old man has. The next time I see him I'll give him a taste of my staff." To this Lin-chi yelled, "Why wait! I can give it to you now," and proceeded to slap the master's face. The startled Huang-po declared, "This crazy monk is plucking the tiger's whiskers." Whereupon Lin-chi emitted the first of what was to be a lifetime of shouts, affirming his wordless insight. The satisfied Huang-po called an attendant and said, "Take this crazy fellow to the assembly hall."

This is a perfect example of "sudden" enlightenment that took many years to achieve. Lin-chi had been a plodding, earnest young man until the moment of his "sudden" enlightenment, which occurred over a seemingly uncalculated remark by a teacher not even his own master. In fact, all Huang-po had done was to assail him with a staff. But Lin-chi was transformed suddenly from a milksop to the founder of a school, probably the greatest radicalization since the Apostle Paul was struck down on the road to Damascus.3 Still, Lin-chi's "sudden" enlightenment had come about at the end of a highly disciplined period of preparation. As he later described it:

_In bygone days I devoted myself to the _vinaya_ and also delved into the _sutras _and _sastras_. Later, when I realized that they were medicines for salvation and displays of doctrines in written words, I once and for all threw them away, and searching for the Way, I practiced meditation. Still later I met great teachers. Then it was, with my Dharma Eye becoming clear, that I could discern all the old teachers under Heaven and tell the false ones from the true. It is not that I understood from the moment I was born of my mother, but that, after exhaustive investigation and grinding discipline, in an instant I knew of myself.4

_

Like a reformed addict, he railed most against his own recent practices. He proceeded to denounce all the trappings of Buddhism, even the Ch'an Patriarchs themselves, as he shattered the chains of his former beliefs:

_Followers of the Way, if you want insight into Dharma as is, just don't be taken in by the deluded views of others. Whatever you encounter, either within or without, slay it at once: on meeting a buddha slay the buddha, on meeting a patriarch slay the patriarch, on meeting an arhat slay the arhat, on meeting your parents slay your parents, on meeting your kinsman slay your kinsman, and you attain emancipation. By not cleaving to things, you freely pass through.5

_

After his enlightenment, he had many exchanges with Huang-po in which he came off ahead as often as not. It is also interesting that many of the interactions involved the manual labor of the monastery, an indication of the significance of work in Ch'an life. One famous joust between Lin-chi and Huang-po went as follows:

_One day Master Lin-chi went with Huang-po to do some work in which all the monks participated. Lin-chi followed his master who, turning his head, noticed that Lin-chi was carrying nothing in his hand.

"Where is your hoe?"

"Somebody took it away."

"Come here: let us discuss something," commanded Huang-po and as Lin- chi drew nearer, he thrust his hoe into the ground and continued, "There is no one in the world who can pick up my hoe."

However, Lin-chi seized the tool, lifted it up, and exclaimed, "How then could it be in my hands?"

"Today we have another hand with us; it is not necessary for me to join in."

And Huang-po returned to the temple.6

_ This story can be interpreted many ways. John Wu says, "Obviously he was using the hoe as a pointer to the great function of teaching and transmitting the lamp of Ch'an. . . . [This was] a symbolic way of saying that in a mysterious manner the charge was now in his hands."7 However, as Freud once remarked concerning the celebrated phallic symbolism of his stogie, "Sometimes, madam, it's just a cigar," and one suspects that in this little slapstick episode, the hoe might possibly be just a hoe.

Another exchange between Huang-po and Lin-chi may have more dialectical significance. According to the story:

_One day Huang-po ordered all the monks of the temple to work in the tea garden. He himself was the last to arrive. Lin-chi greeted him, but stood there with his hands resting on the hoe.

"Are you tired?" asked Huang-po

"I just started working; how can you say that I am tired?"

Huang-po immediately lifted his stick and struck Lin-chi, who then seized the stick, and with a push, made his master fall to the ground. Huang-po called the supervisor to help him up. After doing so, the supervisor asked, "Master, how can you let such a madman insult you like that?" Huang-po picked up the stick and struck the supervisor. Lin-chi, digging the ground by himself, made this remark: "Let all other places use cremation; here I will bury you alive._"8_

_

Of Lin-chi's final quip, which tends to take the edge off a really first-rate absurdist anecdote, John Wu makes the following observation, "This was a tremendous utterance, the first authentic roaring, as it were, of a young lion. It was tantamount to declaring that his old conventional self was now dead and buried, with only the True Self living in him; that this death may and should take place long before one's physical decease; that it is when this death has taken place that one becomes one's True Self which, being unborn, cannot die. From that time on, there could no longer be any doubt in Huang-po's mind that his disciple was thoroughly enlightened, destined to carry on and brighten the torch of Ch'an."9 Whether this is true or not, it does seem clear that Lin-chi's pronounced personality appealed to old Huang-po, who loved to match wits with him as he came and went around the monastery. He even allowed the young master liberties he denied others. For example, Lin-chi once showed up during the middle of a summer meditation retreat, something strictly forbidden. He then decided to leave before it was over, something equally unprecedented:

_One day after half the summer session had already passed, Lin-chi went up the mountain to visit his master Huang-po whom he found reading a sutra. Lin-chi said to him:

"I thought you were the perfect man, but here you are apparently a dull old monk, swallowing black beans [Chinese characters]."

Lin-chi stayed only a few days and then bid farewell to Huang-po, who said:

"You came here after the summer session had started, and now you are leaving before the summer session is over."

"I came here simply to visit you, Master!"

Without ado, Huang-po struck him and chased him away. After having walked a few li, Lin-chi began to doubt his enlightenment in Ch'an, so he returned to Huang-po for the rest of the summer.10

_

Some time after Lin-chi received the seal of enlightenment from Huang- po, he decided to go his own way and departed for the province of Hopei, where he became the priest of a small temple on the banks of a river. This little temple was called "Overlooking the Ford," or _lin- chi_ in Chinese, and it was from this locale that he took his name. After he was there for a time, however, some local fighting broke out, forcing him to abandon his pastoral riverbank location. (This disturbance may well have been connected with the disruptions of the 845 persecution of Buddhism.) But even when in the middle of a war he seems to have always been a man of Ch'an. There is an episode that strongly resembles the eighteenth-century essayist Dr. Samuel Johnson's kicking a stone to refute Berkeley's proposition that matter is nonexistent:

_One day the Master entered an army camp to attend a feast. At the gate he saw a staff officer. Pointing to an open-air pillar, he asked: "Is this secular or sacred?"

The officer had no reply.

Striking the pillar, the Master said: "Even if you could speak, this is still only a wooden post." Then he went in.11

_

Fortunately, Ch'an was not a sect that required a lot of paraphernalia, and Lin-chi merely moved into the nearby town, where the grand marshal donated his house for a temple. He even hung up a plaque with the name "Lin-chi," just to make the master feel at home. But things may have heated up too much, for Lin-chi later traveled south to the prefecture of Ho, where the governor, Counselor Wang, honored him as a master. There is a telling conversation between the two that reveals much about the teaching of Ch'an at the time. Apparently the Ch'anists had completely abandoned even any pretense of traditional Buddhism--again a fortuitous development, considering traditional Buddhism's imminent destruction.

_One day the Counselor Wang visited the Master. When he met the Master in front of the Monks' Hall, he asked: "Do the monks of this monastery read the sutras?"

"No, they don't read sutras," said the Master.

"Then do they learn meditation?" asked the Counselor.

"No, they don't learn meditation," answered the Master.

"If they neither read sutras nor learn meditation, what in the world are they doing?" asked the Counselor.

"All I do is make them become buddhas and patriarchs," said the Master.12

_

Lin-chi eventually traveled on, finally settling at the Hsing-hua temple in Taming prefecture, where he took up his final residence. It was here that a record of his sermons was transcribed by a "humble heir" named Ts'un-chiang. The result was _The Record of Lin-chi_, one of the purest exercises in the dialectics of the nondialectical understanding. But, as Heinrich Dumoulin observed, "Zen has never existed in pure experience only, without admixture of theoretical teachings or methodical practice, as it has sometimes been idealized. It could not exist in that fashion, for mysticism, like all other human experience, is dependent on the actual conditions of human life."13 Indeed, Lin-chi was one of the first to develop what might be called a dialectic of irrationality. He loved categories and analysis in the service of nonconceptual inquiry, and what he created were guides to the uncharted seas of the intuitive mind.

Lin-chi is best known for his use of the shout. He shared the concern of Huang-po and Ma-tsu with the problem of wordless transmission and to their repertory of beatings and silences he added the yell, another way to affirm insights that cannot be reasoned. We may speculate that the shout was rather like a watered-down version of the beating, requiring less effort but still able to startle at a critical instant.14 He seems to have been particularly fond of classifying things into groups of four, and one of his most famous classifications was of the shout itself. He once demonstrated the shout to a hapless monk as follows:

_The Master asked a monk: "Sometimes a shout is like the jeweled sword of a spirit King [i.e., extremely hard and durable]; sometimes a shout is like the golden-haired lion crouching on the ground [i.e., strong, taut, and powerful]; sometimes a shout is like a weed-tipped fishing pole [i.e., probing and attracting the unwary]; and sometimes a shout doesn't function as a shout. How do you understand this?"

As the monk fumbled for an answer, Lin-chi gave a shout.15

_

His philosophy of the shout as a device for cutting off sequential reasoning was thus demonstrated by example. But the question those who relate this story never resolve is: Which of the four shouts was the shout he used on the student? [John Wu in _The Golden Age of Zen _speculates that this shout was of the first category, since it was meant to "cut off" the monk's sequential thought, but that seems a rather simplistic mixing of the metaphorical with the concrete.16)

Lin-chi also was not averse to the use of the stick in the pursuit of reality, as the following example illustrates. The story also shows that the use of the stick was meaningful only if it was unexpected.

_Once the Master addressed the assembly.

"Listen, all of you! He who wants to learn Dharma must never worry about the loss of his own life. When I was with Master Huang-po I asked three times for the real meaning of Buddhism, and three times I was struck as if tall reeds whipped me in the wind. I want those blows again, but who can give them to me now?"

A monk came forth from the crowd, answering: "I can give them to you!"

Master Lin-chi picked up a stick and handed it to him. When the monk tried to grab it, the Master struck him instead.17

_

There also is a story indicating that Lin-chi believed that when the shout failed to work, the stick might be required.

_The Master took the high seat in the Hall. A monk asked, "What about the cardinal principle of the Buddha-dharma?"

The Master raised his whisk.

The monk shouted. The Master struck him.

Another monk asked: "What about the cardinal principle of the Buddha- dharma?"

Again the Master raised his whisk.

The monk shouted. The Master also shouted.

The monk faltered; the Master struck him.18

_

Yet another series of exchanges sounds a similar theme.

_The Master asked a monk, "Where do you come from?"

The monk shouted.

The master saluted him and motioned him to sit down. The monk hestitated. The Master hit him.

Seeing another monk coming, the Master raised his whisk.

The monk bowed low. The Master hit him.

Seeing still another monk coming, the Master again raised his whisk. The monk paid no attention. The Master hit him too.19

_He was also challenged by a nun, one of the few recorded

instances of a master actually matching wits with a woman who had taken Ch'an orders.

_The Master asked a nun: "Well-come or ill-come?"

The nun shouted.

"Go on, go on, speak!" cried the Master, taking up his stick.

Again the nun shouted. The Master hit her.20

_

What Lin-chi also brought to Ch'an was a dialectical inquiry into the relationship between master and pupil, together with a similar analysis of the mind states that lead to enlightenment. He seems remarkably sophisticated for the ninth century, and indeed we would be hard pressed to find this kind of psychological analysis anywhere in the West that early. The puzzling, contradictory quality about all this is that Lin-chi believed fervently in intuitive intelligence, and in the uselessness of words--even warning that questions were irrelevant:

_Does anyone have a question? If so, let him ask it now. But the instant you open your mouth you are already way off.21

_

Among his dialectical creations were various fourfold categorizations of the intangible. We have already seen his four categories of the shout. He also created the four categories of relationship between subject and object, also sometimes called the Four Processes of Liberation from Subjectivity and Objectivity. Some believe this served to structure the "four standpoints or points of view which Lin-chi used in instructing his students."22 Lin-chi's original proposition, the basis of all the later commentary, is provided in _The Record of Lin- chi _as follows:

_At the evening gathering the Master addressed the assembly, saying: "Sometimes I take away man and do not take away the surroundings; sometimes I take away the surroundings and do not take away man; sometimes I take away both man and the surroundings; sometimes I take away neither man nor the surroundings._"23_

_As Chang Chung-yuan describes these four arrangements, the first is to "take away the man but not his objective situation," i.e., to take away all interpretation and just experience the world without subjective associations.24 (This is quite similar to the approach of the Japanese haiku poem, in which a description of something is provided completely devoid of interpretation or explicit emotional response.)

The second arrangement is to let the man remain but take away objectivity. As John Wu interprets this, "In the second stage, people of normal vision, who see mountains as mountains and rivers as rivers, must be reminded of the part that their own mind contributes to the appearance of things, and that what they naively take for objectivity is inextricably mixed with subjectivity. Once aware of subjectivity, one is initiated into the first stages of Ch'an, when one no longer sees mountains as mountains and rivers as rivers."25 This is merely the Ch'an commonplace that "non-attachment or objectivity liberates one's self from bondage to the outside and thus leads to enlightenment."26 As Dumoulin describes these, "In the first and second stages, illusion departs first from the subject and then from the object; clinging to subjective intellectual perception and to the objective world is overcome."27

Lin-chi's third stage is to "take away both the man and his objective situation. In other words, it is liberation from . . . the attachments of both subjectivity and objectivity. Lin-chi's famous 'Ho!' . . . often served this purpose."28 In a blow of a master's staff or a shout there is nothing one can grasp, either objectively or subjectively. This is the next-to-last stage in the progression toward liberation from the mind's tyranny.

In the fourth stage we find the final condition, in which objectivity and subjectivity cease to be distinguishable. What this means is that there is no intellectuation at all, that the world simply is. As Dumoulin declares, "reality is comprehended in its final oneness."29 Or as the story says: Before enlightenment, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers; during the study of Zen, mountains are not mountains and rivers are not rivers; but when there finally is enlightenment, mountains are again mountains and rivers are rivers. In this final state the distinction and confrontation of subject and object dissolve, as we are finally at one with the nameless world.

Another of Lin-chi's famous dialectical categories is his "Fourfold Relationship possible Between Questioner and Answerer or Between Guest and Host." The point of the structure he sets up is to elucidate the interaction of master and novice, but he does so using metaphor of host and guest--where the host represents the universal Self and the guest the ego-form self.30 Lin-chi's sermon on the subject went as follows:

_A true student gives a shout, and to start with holds out a

sticky lacquer tray. The teacher, not discerning that this is an

objective circumstance, goes after it and performs a lot of antics with it. The student again shouts but still the teacher is unwilling to let go. This is . . . called "the guest examines the host."

Sometimes a teacher will proffer nothing, but the instant a student asks a question, robs him of it. The student, having been robbed, resists to the death and will not let go; this is called "the host examines the guest."

Sometimes a student comes forth before a teacher in conformity with a state of purity. The teacher, discerning that this is an objective circumstance, seizes it and flings it into a pit. "What an excellent teacher!" exclaims the student, and the teacher replies, "Bah! You can't tell good from bad!" Thereupon the student makes a deep bow; this is called "the host examines the host."

Or again, a student will appear before a teacher wearing a cangue and bound with chains. The teacher fastens on still more chains and cangues for him. The student is so delighted that he can't tell what is what: this is called "the guest examines the guest._"31_

_In the first category, according to Chang Chung-yuan, the ego meets the universal Self.32 In the second category the universal Self encounters the ego-form self. In the third category, the universal Self of one meets the universal Self of another, and in the fourth category the ego of one encounters the ego of another. Or if we are to interpret this in the concrete, in the first encounter, an enlightened master meets an unenlightened novice; in the second an enlightened novice meets an unenlightened master (which did happen); in the third an enlightened master meets an enlightened novice; and in the fourth category an unenlightened master meets an unenlightened novice, to the mutual delusion of both.33

Lin-chi has been called the most powerful master in the entire history of Ch'an, and not without reason. His mind was capable of operating at several levels simultaneously, enabling him to overlay very practical instruction with a comprehensive dialectic. He believed in complete spontaneity, total freedom of thought and deed, and a teaching approach that has been called the "lightning" method--because it was swift and unpredictable. He was uncompromising in his approach, and he was also extremely critical of the state of Ch'an in his time--a criticism probably justified. He found both monks and masters wanting. It seems that Ch' an had become fashionable, with the result that there were

many masters who were more followers of the trend than followers of the Way. So whereas Huang-po often railed against other sects of Buddhism, Lin-chi reserved his ire for other followers of Ch'an (there being few other Buddhist sects left to criticize).

He even denounced his own students, who often mimicked his shouting without perceiving his discernment in its use. He finally had to set standards for this, announcing to the assembly one day that henceforth only those who could tell the enlightened from the unenlightened would have the right to shout.

_ "You all imitate my shouting," he said, "but let me give you a test now. One person comes out from the eastern hall. Another person comes out from the western hall. At their meeting, they simultaneously shout. Do you possess enough discernment to distinguish the guest from the host [i.e., the unenlightened from the enlightened]? If you have no such discernment, you are forbidden hereafter to imitate my shouting.34

_

His major concern seems to have been that his students resist intellection. Lin-chi himself was able to speculate philosophically while still a natural man, using conceptual thought only when it served his purpose. But perhaps his students could not, for he constantly had to remind them that striving and learning were counterproductive.

_"Followers of Tao!" Lin-chi said, "the way of Buddhism admits of no artificial effort; it only consists in doing the ordinary things without any fuss--going to the stool, making water, putting on clothes, taking a meal, sleeping when tired. Let the fools laugh at me. Only the wise know what I mean._"35_

_Or as he said at another time:

_The moment a student blinks his eyes, he's already way off. The moment he tries to think, he's already differed. The moment he arouses a thought, he's already deviated. But for the man who understands, it's always right here before his eyes.36

_

The problem, he believed, was that too many teachers had started "teaching" and explaining rather than forcing students to experience truth for themselves. Thus these teachers had no right

to criticize their monks, since they themselves had failed in their responsibility.

_There are teachers all around who can't distinguish the false from the true. When students come asking about . . . the [objective] surroundings and the [subjective] mind, the blind old teachers immediately start explaining to them. When they're railed at by the students they grab their sticks and hit them, [shouting], "What insolent talk!" Obviously you teachers yourselves are without an eye so you've no right to get angry with them.37

_

And finally, in his old age, Lin-chi became something of a monument himself, a testing point for enlightenment in a world where true teachers were rare. He even complained about it.

_Hearing everywhere of old man Lin-chi, you come here intending to bait me with difficult questions and make it impossible for me to answer. Faced with a demonstration of the activity of my whole body, you students just stare blankly and can't move your mouths at all; you're at such a loss you don't know how to answer me. You go around everywhere thumping your own chests and whacking your own ribs, saying, "I understand Ch'an! I understand the Way!" But let two or three of you come here and you can't do a thing. Bah! Carrying that body and mind of yours, you go around everywhere flapping your lips like winnowing fans and deceiving villagers.38

_His school prospered, becoming the leading expression of Ch'an in China as well as a vital force in the Zen that later arose among Japan's samurai. And his dialectical teachings became the philosophical basis for later Zen, something he himself probably would have deplored. (Later teachers seem to have given Lin-chi's categories more importance than he actually intended, for he professed to loathe systems and was in fact much more concerned with enlightenment as pure experience.) In any case, when he decided that his days were through he put on his finest robes, seated himself in the meditation posture, made a brief statement, and passed on. The year is said to have been 866 or 867.